1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and an apparatus for sending or shipping electrically stored communications or letter contents and/or data on flat information carriers, such as chip cards, that require prepaid postage.
Electronically stored and optionally additionally encoded letter contents or communication data which are, for instance, output to a chip card by a personal computer through a read-write device connected thereto, and are stored in memory in the chip card, may be shipped in the conventional way in an envelope. Chip cards can be sent in order to transmit information or the shipment can be used for a one-time delivery of the chip card to persons in order to make the cards available to them. Depending on the way in which they are to be sent and shipped as well as on the address, mass mailings require the application of different postage values, which would have to be conventionally entered into a postage meter machine by operators.